Name: How Elon Musk Became President
Uploaded: 2025-03-03T18:46:24.000Z
Duration: 13 min 14 s
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The Enlightenment was a philosophical and political movement starting in the 17th century, spanning more than 200 years.

Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, René Descartes,

Names we've all heard before, all influential Enlightenment thinkers, championing ideas like rationalism, the scientific method, individual liberty, rule of law, the separation of church and state, and freedom of religion, among many others.

They rejected the regressive and the primitive, superstition, dictatorships, science denial, religious zealotry.

The Enlightenment was so influential that it led to the formation of an entire country based on its ideals, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Compared to the monarchies controlling much of Europe at the time, their rulers insisting they were chosen by God to lead the unwashed masses, this new, upstart country was an extremely ambitious project well ahead of its time.

Such was the power of Enlightenment ideals.

The rest of the developed world would later follow suit in adopting its principles, resulting in the so-called liberal, later neoliberal world order and the rules-based international order.

Today, however, both are collapsing in front of our eyes, as enemies of Enlightenment principles are elected into office across the developed world.

Giorgio Meloni, Viktor Orban, Robert Fico, Geert Wilders, Elon Musk, Marine Le Pen, Herbert

All elected leaders of Western democracies, future or current, all of whom fundamentally reject Enlightenment principles.

Our modern political system built upon those principles is breaking down, being increasingly rejected by people, or so it seems.

In large part due to our economic system becoming increasingly distorted, with more and more wealth concentrating at the top as the average person gets increasingly poorer.

This is a far cry from the Enlightenment's lofty promises of equality, democracy, freedom and more.

We must, therefore, ask the question, what went wrong?

The short answer is that the Enlightenment was left unfinished.

Its last, crucial component was never put in place, leaving a fatal flaw at the core of our modern world.

Think of the Enlightenment as a building, rising from the swamp of the old world of dictatorship, superstition and oppression.

It is well built and robust, except for the fact that it doesn't have a roof.

Its interior is exposed to the elements, its structure being eroded by rain, snow and wind.

Its columns are starting to lean, walls are beginning to crumble.

It's not long before the whole structure collapses and is swallowed by the swamp, ending a decades, even centuries long experiment in freedom and democracy.

And our political leaders are either busy pretending the building is whole, or trying to devise programs to distribute umbrellas to people inside.

Leftists would want you to believe that it's abnormal to be exposed to the elements indoors.

Imagine if the American pioneers who braved the wilds in wooden shacks had this weak attitude.

Roofs, HVACs and thermal insulation are woke.

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So in our current political-economic system, the proverbial roof is missing, while politicians pretend that it's either not the case or insist that it's normal for rain to fall indoors.

And the United States is the best example we currently have to illustrate this problem.

During the election of President Musk and Vice President Trump, it became clear that an era had ended.

Kamala Harris, a champion of the status quo, had suffered a humiliating defeat against

Elon Musk, who ran on right-wing, populist slogans.

The Harris campaign struggled to come up with a popular, appealing message.

In the final hours of the campaign, they settled on the anemic, uninspired, freedom slogan up against the Musk campaign, promising to make America great again, deport millions of people, bring down prices, drain the swamp and more.

Now, why was the latter messaging more effective in the race?

Because more and more people are increasingly disillusioned with the status quo.

The everyday person's economic situation is either not getting better, or is actively getting worse.

Homeownership, a standard for past generations, is an unattainable dream for many of today's young people.

US higher education is getting more expensive, healthcare is getting more expensive, grocery prices are increasing, rents are increasing.

The only thing not increasing, or at least not nearly enough, is the average person's salary.

And the issues don't stop on the economic front either.

In the entertainment industry, corporate-controlled streaming websites churn out metric tons of visual slop made by exploited, overworked animators and visual artists.

Formerly beloved game studios, known for their popular, innovative, trend-setting titles, are forced to make uninspired, by-the-numbers, at-best mediocre games filled with predatory monetization schemes such as legalized gambling aimed at children.

Artists of all sorts are getting fired and replaced by generative AI.

Even the news articles we read often do not come from real journalists, but chat GPT.

And all this is happening due to a single reason.

The streaming sites, movie studios, game studios, news organizations, universities, hospitals, the food brands you buy, your utility companies, and more, are all increasingly absorbed by large corporations that do not care about what their subsidiaries actually do.

All they care about is the line going up.

If that means scrapping a nearly finished movie for a tax write-off, or replacing writers and artists with AI, increasing grocery prices for no good reason, denying people healthcare, or introducing children to gambling, so be it.

This consistent decay of both the economy and culture, not to mention people's financial situation, is not due to some nefarious international cabal, as some conspiracy theorists would want you to believe.

The reality is far more banal, and I would argue, much more terrifying.

The phenomenon we are experiencing is the corporatization and financialization of everything.

It's corporations taking over more and more aspects of our lives, then looking for ways to make as much money on them as possible, to our detriment.

But right now, America is the epicenter of this ongoing decay.

Americans pay more for healthcare than any other developed nation on earth, yet have worse health outcomes.

Because the private insurance industry wants to make money.

American higher education is getting more and more expensive because the private college and university industry wants to make money.

Entertainment is disappearing into a pit of soullessness, mediocrity, and predatory monetization schemes because the corporations owning the studios want to make money.

Journalists get fired and in turn get replaced by AI because the corporation owning their news site wants to make more money.

And this ongoing decay of soulless money-making machines conquering more and more aspects of our lives is due to the aforementioned issue of the Enlightenment remaining unfinished, of its last, greatest promise remaining unfulfilled, of freedom from monarchs and dictators in the economy.

This is an illustration of a feudal hierarchy, a system the Enlightenment sought to dismantle and succeeded.

The king sits on top, wielding the most power and influence.

Below him a class of nobles, below them a class of knights, and at the very bottom, the serfs.

The king has certain wants, such as money and military forces, and the nobility is tasked with delivering those in exchange for their positions.

Outside of rare cases, the king doesn't really care how the country is actually run.

It must be stable, the money should flow, and the military must be strong.

Meanwhile, the serfs, though they make up the majority, have no control over how the kingdom is run.

Now compare the hierarchy of a feudal monarchy to the hierarchy of a corporation today.

The owner, or group of owners, sit on top.

Below them a class of higher managers, your CEOs, COOs, CFOs, below them a class of local managers, your team leaders, office managers, HR departments, and at the very bottom, the average employees.

The owner has certain wants, mostly good quarterly results, and upper management is tasked with delivering them in exchange for their positions.

Outside of rare cases, the owner doesn't really care how the corporation is actually run.

It must be stable, the quarterly reports should be in the green, and the company should grow.

Beyond these, the owner does not really care.

Meanwhile, the employees, though they make up the majority, have no control over how the corporation is run.

The fact that these corporate structures are legal, enables single individuals to amass enormous amounts of wealth, often through a very simple dynamic.

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How Elon Musk Became President

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